iTunification of Record Players and Studio Equipment

For musicians, this post explains the “iTunification” of music produced with items in a typical home recording studio equipment list. The best record player under $100, and its iTunification, is also explained for those who only consume music. Lots of people produce or consume music on iTunes, and it will likely always be a key player in the entertainment world.

Home Recording for iTunes

Nowadays, people can pick up the top acoustic guitar under $500, and then record a song instantly on most computers. Among such computers is the Mac mini, which is often considered as the best computer for recording music. The Mac and iTunes are both made by Apple, for those who still don’t know (seriously?). That makes it easier to record a song for iTunes, which is done via Apple’s GarageBand app. The only other thing you will probably need is a top acoustic guitar pickup (reviews can help you get one) or microphone.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t record iTunes-ready songs using the items in the usual home recording studio equipment list. The process isn’t different from typical recording, but you have to produce high quality audio because it will undergo conversion. Generally, 24-bit 96kHz resolution is recommended. Refer to Apple’s “Mastered for iTunes” guide as it is chock full of tips about recording and readying your songs. When ready, let Apple convert them to downloadable versions via iTunes’ tools.

From Turntables to iTunes

These days, people like to sync their music among mobile devices and home entertainment systems, including record players. Unfortunately, vinyl records aren’t always bundled with CDs or download codes for digital copies. But that doesn’t keep you from converting the songs on them into a format that can be imported to iTunes. What follows are the steps on how to digitize vinyl records.

Connect the devices the right way. For turntables with USB output, connect it to a port on a computer with a USB cable. For those without a USB output, plug the turntable to an independent A/V receiver or pre-amp before relaying to a computer’s “Line in” port.

Install and open Audacity on your Mac. Then, click on Edit and choose System Preferences before clicking “Line in” on the menu found in the Devices pane (look in the Recording section). You might have to also choose the input source on the Mac’s main sound panel.

To start capturing music through the turntable, click Record on Audacity and play the vinyl record (like on the video below). To minimize distortion and clipping, tweak the input levels as necessary. When the whole record or your desired portion of it finishes playing through, click Stop on Audacity.

Like most other people, you probably want to split what you recorded into separate tracks. Audacity enables you to do just that, plus you can also export the splitted tracks into your preferred file format. Once the vinyl record songs are in a digital format, it’s fairly straight forward to import them to iTunes.